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Stars and Galaxies 9th Edition Seeds Solutions Manual
Stars and Galaxies 9th Edition Seeds Solutions Manual
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ual/
CHAPTER 2
A USER’S GUIDE TO
THE SKY
GUIDEPOST
The previous chapter took you on a cosmic zoom through space and time. That quick preview prepared you
for the journey to come. In this chapter you can begin your exploration by viewing the sky from Earth; as
you do, consider five important questions:
► How are stars and constellations named?
► How is the brightness of stars measured and compared?
► How does the sky appear to change and move in daily and annual cycles?
► What causes seasons?
► How do astronomical cycles affect Earth’s climate?
The beginning of spring, summer, winter, and fall are marked by the vernal equinox, the summer
solstice, the autumnal equinox, and the winter solstice.
In its orbit around the Sun, Earth is slightly closer to the Sun at perihelion in January and slightly
farther away from the Sun at aphelion in July. This change in distance to the Sun has almost no
effect on Earth’s seasons.
The planets appear to move generally eastward along the ecliptic. They appear like bright, non-
twinkling stars with the exception of Uranus and Neptune, which are too faint to be visible to the
unaided eye. Mercury and Venus are never seen far from the Sun and are therefore seen either in the
evening sky after sunset or in the dawn sky before sunrise.
Planets visible in the sky at sunset are traditionally called evening stars, and planets visible in the
dawn sky are called morning stars even though they are not actually stars.
The locations of the Sun and planets along the zodiac are diagramed in a horoscope, which is the
basis for the ancient pseudoscience (or false science), known as astrology.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
2-1 Stars and Constellations
Constellations
Star Names
Favorite Stars
Star Brightness
Magnitude and Flux
2-2 The Sky and Celestial Motions
The Celestial Sphere
Precession
Concept Page: The Sky Around You
How Do We Know? 2-1: Scientific Models
2-3 Sun and Planets
Annual Motion of the Sun
Seasons
Motions of the Planets
Concept Page: The Cycle of the Seasons
How Do We Know? 2-2: Pseudoscience
2-4 Astronomical Influences on Earth's Climate
Milankovitch Climate Cycles: Hypothesis
Milankovitch Climate Cycles: Evidence
How Do We Know 2-3: Evidence as the Foundation of Science
How Do We Know 2-4: Scientific Arguments
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strangely enough, just ahead of us was the first open lead of water
that was large enough for an aeroplane to land in that we had
encountered on our whole journey north. There was nothing left now
but to descend for observations to learn where we were. As Captain
Amundsen’s plane started to circle for a landing, his rear motor
backfired and stopped, so that he finally disappeared among a lot of
ice hummocks, with only one motor going.
This was at 1 a.m. on the morning of May 22nd.
The lead ran east and west, meeting our course at right angles.
It was an awful-looking hole. We circled for about ten minutes,
looking for enough open water to land in. The lead was choked up
with a chaotic mass of floating ice floes, and it looked as if some one
had started to dynamite the ice pack. Ice blocks standing on edge or
piled high on top of one another, hummocks and pressure-ridges,
was all that greeted our eyes. It was like trying to land in the Grand
Canyon.
We came down in a little lagoon among the ice-floes, taxied over
to a huge ice-cake, and, anchoring our plane to it, jumped out with
our sextant and artificial horizon to find out where we were. Not
knowing what to expect, I carried my rifle, but after our long flight I
was a bit unsteady on my legs, tumbled down into the deep snow,
and choked up the barrel. Our eyes were bloodshot and we were
almost stone-deaf after listening to the unceasing roar of our motors
for eight hours, and the stillness seemed intensified.
Looking around on landing, I had the feeling that nothing but
death could be at home in this part of the world and that there could
not possibly be any life in such an environment, when I was
surprised to see a seal pop up his head beside the plane. I am sure
he was as surprised as we were, for he raised himself half out of the
water to inspect us and seemed not at all afraid to approach, as he
came almost up to us. We had no thought of taking his life, for we
expected to be off and on our way again towards the Pole after our
observation. His curiosity satisfied, he disappeared, and we never
saw another sign of life in those waters during our entire stay in the
ice.
Our observations showed that we had come down in Lat. 87° 44′
N., Long. 10° 20′ West. As our flight meridian was 12° East, where
we landed was, therefore, 22° 20′ off our course. This westerly drift
had cost us nearly a degree in latitude and enough extra fuel to have
carried us to the Pole. As it was, we were just 136 nautical miles
from it. At the altitude at which we had been flying just before
descending, our visible horizon was forty-six miles; which means that
we had been able to see ahead as far as Lat. 88° 30′ N., or to within
just ninety miles of the North Pole. We had left civilization, and eight
hours later we were able to view the earth within ninety miles of the
goal that it had taken Peary twenty-three years to reach. Truly “the
efforts of one generation may become the commonplace of the
next.”
When we had finished taking our observation, we began to
wonder where N 25 was. We crawled up on all the high hummocks
near by and with our field-glasses searched the horizon. Dietrichson
remarked that perhaps Amundsen had gone on to the Pole. “It would
be just like him,” he said. It was not until noon, however, of the 22nd
that we spotted them from an especially high hill of ice. The N 25 lay
with her nose pointing into the air at an angle of forty-five degrees,
among a lot of rough hummocks and against a huge cake of old blue
Arctic ice about forty feet thick, three miles away. It was a rough-
looking country, and the position of the N 25 was terrible to behold.
To us it looked as though she had crashed into this ice.
We of the N 24 were not in too good shape where we were. We
had torn the nails loose on the bottom of our plane, when we took off
from King’s Bay, so that she was leaking badly; in fact, the water was
now above the bottom of the petrol tanks. Also, our forward motor
was disabled. In short, we were badly wrecked. Things looked so
hopeless to us at that moment that it seemed as though the
impossible would have to happen ever to get us out. No words so
well express our mental attitude at that time as the following lines of
Swinburne’s:
That first day, while Dietrichson and I had tried to reach the N 25,
Omdal had been trying to repair the motor. We dragged our canvas
canoe up over hummocks and tumbled into icy crevasses until we
were thoroughly exhausted. The snow was over two to three feet
deep all over the ice, and we floundered through it, never knowing
what we were going to step on next. Twice Dietrichson went down
between the floes and only by hanging onto the canoe was he able
to save himself from sinking. After half a mile of this we were forced
to give up and return.
We pitched our tent on top of the ice floe, moved all our
equipment out of the plane into it, and tried to make ourselves as
comfortable as possible. But there was no sleep for us and very little
rest during the next five days. Omdal was continually working on the
motor, while Dietrichson and I took turns at the pump. Only by the
most incessant pumping were we able to keep the water down below
the gasoline tanks.
Although we had located the N 25, they did not see us till the
afternoon of the second day, which was May 23rd. We had taken the
small inflated balloons, which the meteorologist had given us with
which to obtain data regarding the upper air strata, and after tying
pieces of flannel to them set them loose. We hoped that the wind
would drift them over to N 25 and so indicate to them in which
direction to look for us. But the wind blew them in the wrong
direction, or else they drifted too low and got tangled up in the rough
ice.
Through all that first day the wind was blowing from the north
and we could see quite a few patches of open water. On the second
day the wind shifted to the south and the ice began to close in on us.
It was as though we were in the grasp of a gigantic claw that was
slowly but surely contracting. We had a feeling that soon we would
be crushed.
On the third day, May 24th, the temperature was -11.5 c., and we
had trouble with our pump freezing. The two planes were now slowly
drifting together, and we established a line of communication, so that
we knew each other’s positions pretty well. It is tedious work,
semaphoring, for it requires two men: one with the flag, and the other
with a pair of field-glasses to read the signals. It took us a whole
hour merely to signal our positions, after which we must wait for their
return signals and then reply to them.
On this day, after an exchange of signals, we decided to try to
reach Amundsen. We packed our canvas canoe, put it on our
sledge, and started across what looked to us like mountainous
hummocks. After only going a few hundred yards we had to give up.
The labor was too exhausting. With no sleep for three days, and only
liquid food, our strength was not what it should have been. Leaving
our canvas canoe, we now made up our packs of fifty pounds each,
and pushed on. We may or we may not return to our plane again.
According to my diary we traveled the first two miles in two hours
and fifteen minutes, when we came upon a large lead that separated
us from the N 25 and which we could see no way to cross. We talked
to them by signal and they advised our returning. So, after a seven-
hour trip, we returned to our sinking plane, having covered perhaps
five and one half miles in about the same length of time it had taken
us to fly from Spitzbergen to Lat. 87.44. Arriving at our plane, we
pitched camp again and cooked a heavy pemmican soup over our
Primus stove. Dietrichson gave us a surprise by producing a small
tin of George Washington coffee. We took some of the pure alcohol
carried for the Primus stove and put it into the coffee, and with pipes
lighted felt more or less happy.
As we smoked in silence, each with his own thoughts,
Dietrichson suddenly clasped his hands to his eyes, exclaiming:
“Something is the matter with my eyes!” He was snow-blind, but
never having experienced this before, did not know what had
happened to him. We had been careful to wear our snow-glasses
during most of the journey, but perhaps not quite careful enough.
After bandaging Dietrichson’s eyes, Omdal and I put him to bed and
then continued with our smoking and thoughts. It seems strange,
when I think back now, that during those days nothing that happened
greatly surprised us. Everything that happened was accepted as part
of the day’s work. This is an interesting sidelight on man’s
adaptability to his environment.
All our energies were now being bent in getting the N 24 up onto
the ice floe, for we knew she would be crushed if we left her in the
lead. The whole cake we were on was only about 200 meters in
diameter, and there was only one level stretch on it of eighty meters.
It was laborious work for Dietrichson and myself to try to clear the
soggy wet snow, for all we had to work with was one clumsy home-
made wooden shovel and our ice-anchor. As I would loosen the
snow by picking at it with the anchor, Dietrichson would shovel it
away.
Looking through our glasses at N 25, we could see the
propellers going, and Amundsen pulling up and down on the wings,
trying to loosen the plane from the ice, but she did not budge. On the
morning of May 26th, Amundsen signaled to us that if we couldn’t
save our plane to come over and help them. We had so far
succeeded in getting the nose of our plane up onto the ice-cake, but
with only one engine working it was impossible to do more. Anyway,
she was safe now from sinking, but not from being crushed, should
the ice press in on her. During the five days of our separation the ice
had so shifted that the two planes were now plainly in sight of each
other and only half a mile apart. During all that time the ice had been
in continual movement, so that now all the heavy ice had moved out
from between the two camps. We signaled to the N 25 that we were
coming, and making up loads of eighty pounds per man, we started
across the freshly frozen lead that separated us from our
companions. We were well aware of the chances we were taking,
crossing this new ice, but we saw no other alternative. We must get
over to N 25 with all possible speed if we were ever to get back
again to civilization.
With our feet shoved loosely into our skis, for we never fastened
them on here for fear of getting tangled up, should we fall into the
sea, we shuffled along, slowly feeling our way over the thin ice.
Omdal was in the lead, myself and Dietrichson—who had recovered
from his slight attack of snowblindness the next day—following in
that order. Suddenly I heard Dietrichson yelling behind me, and
before I knew what it was all about Omdal ahead of me cried out
also and disappeared as though the ice beneath him had suddenly
opened and swallowed him. The ice under me started to sag, and I
quickly jumped sideways to avoid the same fate that had overtaken
my companions. There just happened to be some old ice beside me
and that was what saved me. Lying down on my stomach, partly on
this ledge of old ice, and partly out on the new ice, I reached the skis
out and pulled Dietrichson over to where I could grab his pack and
partly pull him out onto the firmer ice, where he lay panting and
exhausted. Then I turned my attention to Omdal. Only his pallid face
showed above the water. It is strange, when I think that both these
Norwegians had been conversing almost wholly in their native
tongue, that Omdal was now crying in English, “I’m gone! I’m
gone!”—and he was almost gone too. The only thing that kept him
from going way under was the fact that he kept digging his fingers
into the ice. I reached him just in time to pull him over to the firmer
ice. I reached him just before he sank and held him by his pack until
Dietrichson could crawl over to me and hold him up, while I cut off
the pack. It took all the remaining strength of the two of us to drag
Omdal up onto the old ice.
Our companions could not reach us, neither could they see us,
as a few old ice hummocks of great size stood directly in front of
N 25. They could do nothing but listen to the agonizing cries of their
fellow-men in distress. We finally succeeded in getting over to our
companions, who gave us dry clothes and hot chocolate, and we
were soon all right again, except for Omdal’s swollen and lacerated
hands. Both men had lost their skis. In view of the probability of
being forced to tramp to Greenland, four hundred miles away, the
loss of these skis seemed a calamity.
I was surprised at the change only five days had wrought in
Captain Amundsen. He seemed to me to have aged ten years. We
now joined with our companions in the work of freeing the N 25 from
her precarious position. As stated before, when Captain Amundsen’s
plane had started to come down into the lead, his rear motor back-
fired, and he was forced to land with only one motor working, which
accounted for the position which we now found N 25 in. She lay half
on and half off an ice floe; her nose was up on the cake and her tail
down in the sea. Coming down thus had reduced her speed and
saved her from crashing into the cake of old blue ice, which was
directly ahead. It seemed amazing that whereas five days ago the
N 25 had found enough open water to land in, now there was not
enough to be seen anywhere sufficient to launch a rowboat in. She
was tightly locked in the grip of the shifting ice.
Our observations for Latitude and Longitude this day showed our
position to be 87.32 N. and 7.30 W. It meant that the whole pack had
been steadily drifting southeast since our arrival. It was at least some
consolation to know that we were slowly but surely drifting south,
where we knew there was game. How we should have liked to have
had that seal we saw the first day! We had seen no life of any
description since, neither in the water nor in the air, not even a track
on the snow to show that there was another living thing in these
latitudes but ourselves. It is a land of misery and death.
With a view to working the longest possible time in an attempt to
get the N 25 clear, and at the same time have sufficient provisions
left with which to reach Greenland, Captain Amundsen felt that it was
necessary to cut down our daily rations to 300 grams per man, or
just one half pound per man per day. This amounted to one-half the
ration that Peary fed his dogs a day on his journey to the Pole. By
thus reducing our rations, he figured that our provisions would last
for two months longer.
Captain Amundsen now set June 15th as the date upon which a
definite decision must be arrived at. On that date something must be
done; so a vote was taken, each man having the option of either
starting on foot for Greenland on that date, or else sticking by the
plane with the hope of open water coming while watching the food
dwindle. There was much divided opinion. It seemed absurd to
consider starting out on a long tramp when right by our side was 640
horsepower lying idle, which could take us back to civilization within
eight hours. Captain Amundsen was for staying by the plane. He
said that with the coming of summer the leads would open. Riiser-
Larsen said he would start walking on June 15th. Feucht said he
would not walk a foot and that he would stick by the motors. Omdal
said he would do what the majority did, and I said I would prefer to
wait until June 14th before making a decision.
My own mind was pretty well made up that if I ever succeeded in
traveling 100 miles towards Greenland on foot, I would be doing well.
Yet sitting down by the plane and watching the last of the food go
was a thing that ran counter to my every impulse. I agreed with
Captain Amundsen that I should much prefer to “finish it” on my feet.
I think that all really believed that in our worn-out condition, carrying
thirty pounds on our backs and dragging a canvas canoe along with
which to cross open leads, none of us would be able to reach the
Greenland coast.
Most of our doubt regarding the tramp to Greenland, of course,
came from our not knowing just how far the bad country that we
were in extended. Climb up as high as we could, we were never able
to see the end of it. Whether it extended to Greenland or not was the
question, and that was what made it so hard for us to decide what
course to take.
After our evening cup of chocolate Captain Amundsen and I
generally would put on our skis and take a few turns around the ice
floe we were on before turning into our sleeping-bags. I usually
asked him on these occasions what he thought of the situation. His
reply was that things looked pretty bad, but he was quick to add that
it had always been his experience in life that when things were
blackest, there was generally light ahead.
On May 31st there was eight inches of ice in the lead on the far
side of the floe we were on. We decided to try a take-off on this new
ice. From our ice-cake down into the lead there was a six-foot drop,
so that it was necessary to construct a slip upon which to get our
plane down into the lead. We built this slip in accordance with
standard road-making principles—first heavy blocks of ice, then
filling in on top with smaller pieces, and then tiny lumps and loose
snow, on top of which we spread a layer of loose snow which froze
into a smooth surface. It took us two days to build this slip and to
level off the ice ahead for 500 meters.
At this time we had established regular nightly patrols, each man
taking his turn at patrolling all night around and around the ice floe,
on his skis, looking for open water. The mental strain during this
period was terrific, for we never knew when the cake we were on
might break beneath us.
On June 2nd, at 5 p.m., we decided that our slip was worthy a
trial. We started up the motors and taxied across the floe and down
the slip, but we had built our slip too steep, and, therefore, not
having enough speed, the plane simply sagged through the ice and
for 1,000 meters we merely plowed through it. We shut off the
motors and prepared to spend the night in the lead.
At midnight I was awakened by Captain Amundsen yelling that
the plane was being crushed. I could plainly hear the pressure
against the metal sides. We lost no time in getting everything out
onto some solid ice near by, and by working the plane up and down
permitted the incoming ice to close in beneath her from both sides. It
was a narrow escape. We had expected the plane to be crushed like
an eggshell. Riiser-Larsen’s only comment after the screwing
stopped was, “Another chapter to be added to our book!” Before
morning our first heavy fog set in. The Arctic summer was upon us.
From then on the fog hung like a pall over us and for the remainder
of our stay in the Arctic we were never free from it, although we were
always able to see the rim of the sun through it and knew that above
it the sky was clear and the sun shining brightly, but we could not
rise into it. With the coming of the fogs the temperature rose to
freezing.
We were gradually working our way over towards where the
N 24 was lying. During the day we would level off a new course, but
there was not sufficient wind in which to rise, and as usual our
heavily loaded plane broke through the thin ice,—